“I am not a medic, but a lesion to the Achilles tendon does sound serious,” said the Coach.

Initial fears are that Zanetti could be out of action for eight months, which could end his career as he turns 40 in August.

“It’s another heavy blow and one we really could’ve done without, because Zanetti’s value to us is incredible. It’s difficult to comment on a situation like this.

“As for the game, we conceded a goal on our mistake, then gave it everything we had and created the chances to equalise, even if we didn’t have many options in attack.”

At this rate, Inter may well fail to qualify for Europe altogether, as they slipped down to seventh place.

“There are still another four very important games to go, including the head-to-heads with Napoli, Lazio and Udinese. Having lost our captain is a really heavy blow, but even the youngest players put their all into it today.

“So many of them are sacrificing themselves for the team and in the long run you pay a price for that. An error affected the result today, but I saw the right spirit and we must continue like this to the end. We hope to recover a few more players this week, otherwise it’s extremely difficult.

“I do not want to hear any alibis, as these final four games must be played to the death.”

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